Shadow Dance Page 21

  "She's a slender thing," Fawadh said, all business, as if she were discussing the attributes of a heifer at a livestock auction. "But her shoulders are lovely."

  Braeton's low, utterly sensual, "They are, aren't they," came from the other side of the dressing room curtain.

  "Wherever did you find her?" Fawadh asked.

  "Tucked into the hedges on a country lane, if you can believe it." So matter-of-fact.

  Fawadh smirked a little, then seemed to make some sort of decision and snapped into action. "The Midnight Goddess I think," she said to the petite Caraki girl next to her. Her assistant hurried off into an adjoining room, her reflection disappearing from my line of sight in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

  "I particularly enjoy her eyes – so large and expressive," Fawadh said for Braeton's benefit.

  Braeton's hum of agreement was as good a cue as any.

  "Moopsie-pie, can you fetch my fan?" I called, pitching my voice into Tettian-accented Altyran.

  He didn't miss a beat. "Yes, Nibblets."

  "You said we were going for honey ices," I whined. "I want a honey ice."

  "And we will, Fuzzy-Wuzzums... just as soon as you finish trying on the pretty new dress," he responded, sounding infinitely patient. A moment later he poked my fan through the drawn curtains.

  Fawadh’s little assistant handed it to me.

  "Thank you, babbaloos," I called, giggling like a little girl as I fluttered the fan around. The assistant seemed rather annoyed when I repeatedly aimed a flutter at her head.

  There was a swish of silk somewhere behind me, and then Fawadh murmured, "Hold your arms up, dearie."

  "Oh. Alright." I dropped the fan on the floor as though I had forgotten it and raised my arms. Ink-blue silk drifted down over my head as Fawadh and her assistant began trying to get the gown on me. Halfway in I started giggling again, waving my hands, making Fawadh catch them in order to get my arms through the bodice. There was a lot of grunting and gasping, even some muttered swearing in Carakian when Fawadh’s assistant fell off her footstool, and then I finally emerged from the other end of the dress like a caterpillar molting in reverse.

  It was entirely too satisfying. Fawadh’s glittery pink wig was askew, her powder thinning beneath a sheen of perspiration, her face rosy from exertion. She had to stand there, her hands at her sides, catching her breath while her assistant began doing up the broad laces that held the back of the dress together.

  Well, not together, exactly. They kept the thing from falling off, but there was a long gap between the panels that ran almost all the way down my spine, designed to let a glimpse of skin show through the ribbons while making it scandalously obvious that I wasn't wearing a corset.

  The ribbons ended in a big, puffy bow that sat at exactly the right place to emphasize the narrowest part of my waist, before turning into a cascade of deep, puffy swags and flounces that formed a dramatic train. The front was surprisingly sleek, made to skim the contours of my torso before falling in graceful lines to the floor. Small off-the-shoulder sleeves emphasized my collarbones and all of it, the entire dress, was stark midnight blue-black. Not a single embellishment, no lace, no beadwork.

  The girl in the mirror looked like she belonged in the fashion plate edition of Fame and Fortune. High cheekbones, wild golden curls, large doe-eyes the color of rich amber. The combination of the mask's pyxxe face, my small frame, and that sensual dress somehow made this version of Pendar look like a child. No. Worse. Like a little girl playing at being a woman, lost and out of her depth and vulnerable. This Pendar was meant to be preyed upon.

  Fawadh beamed at me, her shiny lips stretching into a thoroughly pleased smile. She moved around me, reaching out to tug a ruffle here, adjust a ribbon there. Then she chirped a cheerful, "You may come in, now, Lord Braeton."

  I swallowed, shooting a glance over my shoulder as he came ducking through the curtain.

  He took one look at me and stopped still, one hand holding the brocade aside.

  Forcing a too-high giggle, I looked away.

  Thankfully, he had stolen Fawadh’s attention, and they began talking in the corner of the fitting room, discussing everything from the weather to the growing political unrest with the Illyrians in the northern seas. I might as well have been part of the furniture – and it was a good thing. My head was aching, my bones felt like lead, and I could finally stop smiling like a rattlebrain.

  I looked around, taking in all the expensive wall coverings, the beautiful floral arrangements, the pretty murals on the ceiling. This was what blind silence could buy.

  Fawadh didn't just keep quiet in her dealings with the Coventry. She actively participated, giving her patrons exactly what they wanted, dressing their little dolls up while ignoring the human being right in front of her.

  Ydara had stood on that dressing stand, before that same mirror. She had tried to run away the day she was brought in for her fitting, and her patron had beaten her for it. Fawadh simply altered the gown to hide the bruises.

  And now she was doing the same to me. By the time the assistant had finished taking in the waistline and adjusting the hem, I wanted to get down off of that seamstress' stand, tear that awful dress to pieces, and slap that bright-lipped, waxed-over face till she looked at me properly.

  I didn't. I kept acting the idiot, while fervently hoping Fawadh and all the people like her that had latched onto the underbelly of the Coventry would be the first to choke on it when it crumbled.

  38. Missed Opportunity

  13th of Dema, Continued

  The luxglass was cool against my cheek in spite of the warmth of the afternoon sun on the city streets. I closed my eyes, grateful for something solid and tangible, and a moment of uninterrupted silence.

  Braeton wasn't in the traveling compartment. He had sent me back to the Racynne to get ready for the party, and then left on some nameless, unexplained errand that I had every reason to believe would remain nameless and unexplained. We hadn't had a proper conversation since we arrived in Arritagne. Lately, he had only given me lists to memorize and quizzed me on my part in The Plan, but there hadn't been any real communication beyond that. There hadn't been time.

  I was alone. Alone, and silent, and cold. So cold.

  Arramy was on the other side of the compartment wall, up in the cockpit with Enrys, just like he had been yesterday, and the day before that, and all the days since we had gotten off the boat in San Domynne. Like nothing had happened. Which was my fault.

  I hadn't told Braeton.

  There had been a chance after we left Fawadh’s Salon. We had been by ourselves in the lift, and I could have told him then, but the words had tangled in my throat. I choked on them all the way through the hotel foyer and out to the boardwalk, and then Braeton put me in the horseless, told Enrys to head back to the hotel, and that was that.

  And on some deep, dark level, I was glad.

  I thumped my temple against the glass. The contact did nothing to keep the guilt from growing like a canker in my stomach, but I did it again anyway. How could I still be keeping that secret? How could I do that, jeopardize the entire plan, for him? It was unthinkable. He didn't just have blood on his hands, he was neck-deep in it. He was a Coventry animal. Nothing should be holding me back, and yet it was there, a flimsy little thread of resistance and disbelief sewing my lips shut. I was just as much a traitor as the Captain. No. I was a naive traitor. The only excuse I had was that I didn't want Arramy to be a monster because that would mean I had been a gullible little idiot.

  And now my next chance wouldn't be until we left for the party. Braeton was going to pick me up from whatever errand he was on, which meant that for at least the next five hours, I would have to keep pretending I hadn't been anywhere near the rooftop.

  My head gave a vicious throb.

  After a second, I inhaled slowly on an inside-out groan and used my own unspent breath to bring myself up straight. We were almost back to the hotel. Somehow, I had to pull this off.
<
br />   I wanted to be sick.

  ~~~

  It was nearly time to leave. I ignored the Midnight Goddess in the looking glass, thanked Ina for her hard work, and swept out into the sitting room.

  To my surprise, Arramy was the only other person in the suite. He was pouring himself a drink at the sideboard, and when I came out, he went still, his eyes locking on me in the mirror above the counter. His lips parted.

  My heart did a rapid double-tap in my chest, and I looked away. "Where did Enrys go?" I asked, moving to the long couch, where the parcels from Fawadh’s had been deposited in the rush to get ready.

  Arramy put the decanter of port down and turned around, leaning his backside on the sideboard and crossing his arms over his chest, one eyebrow rising. "He's talking to Longwater in the hallway."

  Blast. "Oh," I nodded, hiding an instant jolt of panic by ducking my head and rummaging about in the boxes. I found the velvet cloak Braeton had bought, and dragged the thing out of its tissue paper, swirling it over my shoulders. It was such a dark red it looked black until the light caught it. Then it looked like blood. A flowing, rippling river of blood. My fingers were shaking as I fastened the ridiculously intricate silver lily clasps that held it shut. I couldn't get the top one lined up right. Once. Twice. The third time the clasp came apart, I swore out loud.

  Arramy started toward me.

  I kept jabbing the clasp together, trying to get it to click into place like the others. Such a tiny thing, but if I didn't get it to work, the hood would gape open too far, which would make the whole cloak hang crooked when it wasn't designed to —

  "Here. Let me." Arramy's voice was quiet and close, his lean, tan hands coming into my range of vision.

  I shook my head and shoved the halves of the clasp at each other again.

  Gentle fingers caught mine.

  Still shaking my head, I tried to tug free. "No, I can do it, I don't need –"

  "Do you always have to be so damned stubborn?" He muttered, holding tight enough to keep me from getting away, while somehow managing to get the clasp to connect properly on the first try.

  With an angry growl, I let my jaw jut and gave him a flat glare from beneath my eyebrows.

  He quirked a crooked grin. A very charming, very endearingly crooked grin. The kind of grin that made one corner of his mouth deepen, and his eyes go all warm and liquid pewter. The kind of grin I would have given anything to see only a few months ago.

  He was still holding my hands.

  I swallowed, then took a step back, my throat hot.

  His grin faded. He let go, his gaze somber.

  It was perfectly, painfully quiet, a heavy tension filling the space between us. Arramy had just opened his mouth as if to say something when the sudden chime of the timekeep hitting the hour made me jump. Dazed, I wrenched away, breaking that mesmeric stare.

  Bag. I needed my bag.

  "Wait, I ah..." Arramy blurted, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "I have something for you. Before you go."

  I stopped. Everything is fine. You have to make him believe everything is fine. I didn't know how. Slowly, I forced myself to face him, my hands clenching the folds of my cloak tight. Smile. I couldn't. It wasn't there. I could fake a smile for anyone else, but not Arramy.

  He reached into his back pocket and drew out a small box, a self-deprecating twist to his mouth as he glanced down at it. "I've thought about giving this to you for a while... but you had your compass necklace, so I thought it would be a wee bit silly... And then I thought maybe you wouldn't want it when you had all of Braeton's things..." He cleared his throat. "It's ah... It's not much, but it's been with me through plenty."

  When I didn't move to take it from him, he tilted his head, regarding me thoughtfully. Waiting. Patiently. Holding out that box.

  It was plain, made of resinwood and tied with a piece of twine. I tried to tell myself that refusing it might give me away, but in the end I wasn't thinking anything of the sort. I couldn't undo what I had heard on the hotel roof. When Braeton came to fetch me, everything would change. After tonight, if everything went as planned, I would never see the Captain again, and all I would have left of him would be what was in that box. I couldn't breathe, every muscle frozen as Arramy slowly placed it on my open palm.

  My voice wouldn't work. There weren't any words I could say anyway. I managed a haphazard nod, turned, and made for the door, my vision blurring, my heart breaking under the weight of what I was about to do.

  39. The Nightmare Begins

  13th of Dema, Continued

  The staccato of my dancing heels on the hotel foyer floor echoed from the polished marble walls like gunshots at the far end of a tunnel, giving the moment an eerie finality: pock, pock, pock, pock.

  Don't lose your nerve.

  Braeton smiled as I came toward him, his gaze sharpening when I didn't smile in return, or slow down. I tucked my arm through his as I reached him and pulled him toward the vestibule doors.

  "Arramy met with someone on the roof this morning," I whispered, quick, before I could talk myself out of it. Tear off the tackyplaster. "He gave them information. About today."

  Braeton kept right on going, pushing through the main doors when I tried to pause in the vestibule. He took a right outside the hotel doors and headed down the carriage ramp.

  "He really is Coventry." I added, hurrying to keep up with his long legs and watching for some sort of reaction. Nothing. I frowned. "So how long have you known?"

  "I didn't know for sure until Desmodian let it slip at the veildfaste," Braeton snapped, glancing around as if someone might overhear. "How did you find out?"

  "I followed him," I hissed. "Were you going to tell me?"

  "Of course. Were you?" He shot back, glaring down at me, a spark of the fiery pirate breaking through.

  "I just did," I pointed out.

  We rounded the corner of the building then, moving at a swift clip, and started along the delivery drive that ran from the street to the hotel kitchen entrance. Braeton's horseless stood outside the loading bay, engine idling, Enrys busy loading something into the traveling compartment.

  The strangeness of exiting through the front door only to get into a vehicle at the back suddenly registered. "What's going on?"

  "Change in plans," Braeton said, tone curt. He tugged at my elbow. "Nothing to worry about. Come on."

  With a sigh, I gathered my cloak and was about to follow when the swinging doors from the loading bay slammed open and Longwater came lurching out, half-dragging, half-carrying something very large and bulky wrapped up in a tarpaulin.

  "What in blazes are you doing?" Enrys shouted – but quietly, under his breath. He darted forward, eyes on the swinging doors as he grabbed the other end of the large bulky thing.

  "A'most got caught by the cleaning filla," Longwater grunted, looking cross. "Couldn't finish 'im off. She'd've found the mess too quick."

  Enrys' s voice was high with panic. "He's still alive?"

  I stopped still, realization dawning. "Is that —" I didn't finish because Enrys had drawn a pistol. There was no thinking involved. I tore away from Braeton and sprinted forward before he could stop me, covering the last several meters between me and the loading bay at a full-out run.

  "Well, best be done with," Enrys was saying, "he'll be too much trouble when he wakes up." He reached into the horseless and brought out one of the bolster cushions. He plopped the cushion over the wider end of the bulky thing, where the head would be, and was about to press the muzzle of the pistol to the pillow, when he glanced up at the sound of my footsteps and Braeton's whistle of warning.

  Too late. I had already launched myself at him, sending the pistol flying with a well-placed kick, the rest of me angled to land on Enrys' shoulders. He tried to roll away, but my elbow found his spine between his shoulder blades, and I had a handful of his hair. With a determined yank, I dragged his head back just like Arramy had taught me, using my weight on his neck to overbala
nce him and send him stumbling.

  That was as far as my surprise attack got. Enrys shoved me off and jumped to his feet, breathing hard, shock written all over his face.

  Longwater began laughing, his thick shoulders jerking up and down.

  Careless of my gorgeous clothes, I scrambled backwards and sat on top of the bulky thing, glaring up at the three of them as Braeton came to a stop next to Longwater.

  Braeton raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Get off."

  "No," I shook my head, "Not unless you promise not to hurt him. I'll start screaming. It won't look good, a beautiful rich girl claiming she's being robbed and abducted. I'll have them eating right out of my hand."

  Both of Braeton's brows went up, a spark of something that might have been amusement in his pretty eyes before he ground his teeth and looked around. "Fine. We don't have time for this anyway. Get him in the bootleg box. We'll have to take him with us."

  That wasn't exactly a promise, but Longwater was already grabbing my upper arms, caging me in and lifting me as easily as a child's toy. Throat tight, I stood where he put me, watching as Braeton proceeded to open a cleverly hidden secret compartment in the floor of the horseless. Then Enrys took one end of the bulk in the tarpaulin, Braeton took the other, and the two of them hefted Arramy's apparently unconscious body into the bootleg box.

  A minute later we were rolling out of the hotel courtyard like nothing had happened. Inside the traveling cabin, though, tension reigned as we waited for some sign that someone had seen us. We passed beneath the arched delivery lorry entrance, and Enrys pulled out into the press of traffic in the avenue that bordered the Capitol Square. When we had turned down one side street, then another, and no Magistrate's klaxon had announced an alarm, I finally started breathing again.